A Judge of Character
by Ryuuzaki Kusakurin
Summary: A collection of character-specific oneshots designed to 'get into the heads' of various characters including Lavi, Road, and Tyki. I take requests for characters to feature in following chapters.
1. Plastic People

"A Judge of Character" by Ryuuzaki Kusakurin

**DISLCAIMER:** D. Gray-Man never has, and never will, belong to me.

**Warnings:** Violence, language, etc.  
**Characters:** Various  
**Pairings: **None

Some of these are shorter than others, but the idea was the same: to create a collection of character-respective oneshots so that I could better understand the characters of D. Gray-Man.

This was one of my favourite D. Gray-Man fics that I wrote for my self-appointed introspective one-shot challenge, featuring Lavi. It was created based on the song 'Stained Glass Masquerade' by a band my mother listens to. I'm not entirely sure what the band name is.

* * *

**PLASTIC PEOPLE**

"You fool," Kanda hissed, glaring at the rather sheepish-looking redhead. "Not only did you manage to incite **every** person in the town - which just **happened** to be mostly made up of akuma - but you also levelled the **single** area of the town that had **real **humans in it." Lavi blushed and rubbed a gloved hand over the back of his neck as he was prone to do, a sure sign that he was obviously embarrassed and ashamed of his own conduct. Not that he'd ever admit it, of course. "I think that you're the most careless member of the Order," the Japanese exorcist continued, finally finishing with a wry remark, obviously meant to be sarcastic in its own unique, Kanda-like way. "Congratulations."

"Awww, why thank you, Yu-chan! I never thought you'd have it in you to finally admit my obvious talent!" the Bookman-in-training sobbed, clinging onto the other exorcist.

"I was being sarcastic, damn rabbit," Kanda replied, obviously wanting to be disagreeable and easily succeeding - as usual, of course.

"And here I was, thinking that you were being nice for a change," Lavi whined loudly, following the man nonetheless.

"I'm never nice to people that are annoying, _baka_," came the reply as they boarded the train via the usual way - leaping off of an overhead bridge and onto the roof.

"Whatever you say, Yu-chan..." he sighed, only serving to further irk the long-haired man that he called his best friend. Snickering at the obvious anger that radiated off of Kanda, he followed him to the opening in the train's roof.

* * *

It turned out that the train had been mostly empty, and as such, they had been afforded the luxury of two seperate rooms in the car. Lavi had been excited at first, but then, once he had been alone in the cabin, he calmed down quite a bit and began to wonder when this plastic facade he had put up - the 49th personality, Lavi - had started being so hard to maintain.

He knew that others were like him in that respect from watching carefully and listening. He was the next in line to succeed the old panda, after all.

Underneath his mask, Allen Walker was afraid of losing everything. He was afraid of being alone in the world again, and afraid of losing his friends and those he considered to be family just because he wasn't strong enough. He often had trouble sleeping, and he found it nearly impossible to fight the Noah, because he felt that his Innocence was made more for fighting and cleansing the souls of demons - akuma - and not humans. Regardless, he fought despite of - or maybe because of - that fear and uneasiness.

Behind closed doors, Lenalee Lee, too, was afraid. Every friend and family member she held dear was a part of the world that she decided to protect on a daily basis, whether it was from akuma, Noah, or her dear brother's inventions. She knew that it was her duty to fight until her body stopped being able to fight, and then she would die, but her greatest fear was succeeding. She didn't want to succeed in the war unless her friends and Komui made it out with her; otherwise, she saw no point whatsoever in living. That very thought scared her beyond reason, but she hid it behind a carefully-arranged mask of cheeriness.

Even Kanda had a mask of sorts - of course, he was usually unpleasant to be around by **any** standards, but all the same... When he thought he was alone, he would meditate or stare endlessly at the lotus flower in his quarters, hoping beyond hope that another petal would refuse to fall, and that his life would be prolonged another day. It wasn't that he was afraid of dying, but he refused to fall until the goal was met. Lavi thought he was a good person underneath, but he had seen the other side of Kanda, the side that silently worried over every member of the Order, whether they were nice to him or not. Lavi really did look up to him.

His own mask? It was a carefully compiled web of deception and cheerfulness, designed to make people only look at the surface, where he was Lavi, a bouncing, cheery exorcist with shockingly red hair and an annoying orange scarf that he liked to bat into Kanda's face. Of course, underneath, he was remembering everything for the sake of history - the secret tomes and scrolls of Bookman's clan of scribes and historians. He was pretty sure that if he was alone in a room, he wouldn't start humming tunes off-key just because he felt like it. This personality, the one he had named 'Lavi', might, but he wouldn't. Or would he? He just wasn't sure where one cover-up ended and where his real personality began. It was a tiny bit worrisome, but if they were just pawns to accomplish one ultimate goal, he could live with that. If he had to keep up his random smiles and awful jokes, then so be it. He would be a plastic person for the sake of the Order and for the sake of human lives. The old panda would think that it was wrong, because he would be taking a side, but he had no problem with it whatsoever. But when had he begun to care? Brushing his red mop of hair away from his face, he sighed loudly and pondered that.

"There's no point in being a Bookman if our purpose is to watch humans just like us get slaughtered, right?" he asked the window. Pulling out a small book from within his jacket, he wrote the question down. He kept all of his questions in here; the ones that were senseless, like the one on page 224:

'Why does Yu-chan insist on calling me a rabbit? I don't hop around _that_ much, do I?'

And then there was the infamous question on page 153:

'Why does the old panda wear that much makeup? Should I give him bamboo this Christmas?'

He had, in fact, given his mentor bamboo for the holidays, although and to his eternal disappointment the panda hadn't eaten it. Pity.

But there were deeper questions that peeled away the hard-but-not-real substance that made up his surface personalities in there, proving that maybe 'Lavi' was the deepest thinker of the clan of Bookmen yet. He dreamed and wondered constantly about life and its meanings, people and their thoughts, and psychological workings in general. He was curious by nature, which is why he was where he was now; maybe he could learn to start peeling away the shell more often.

On the next page, he wrote the only statement in his book that would be just that; a statement and not a question.

'Maybe I can be a new kind of Bookman - because if **we** don't care, then nobody else will care about what happened.'

"Plastic, indeed," he snorted, shutting the book once the dark ink dried. Tucking it carefully back into his jacket's inner pocket, he yawned and curled up on the seat of the cabin, falling asleep in a few short minutes.


	2. The Oddest Games

"A Judge of Character" by Ryuuzaki Kusakurin

**DISLCAIMER:** D. Gray-Man never has, and never will, belong to me.

**Warnings:** Violence, language, etc.  
**Characters:** Various  
**Pairings: **None

Some of these are shorter than others, but the idea was the same: to create a collection of character-respective oneshots so that I could better understand the characters of D. Gray-Man.

Once again, I present another Lavi-centric character drabble. That being said, he's one of the hardest characters for me to understand. If the previous one was Lavi being serious, this one is pure insanity. It's also inspired by my own actions... sliding down stairs in boxes and such... I still have the box...

* * *

**THE ODDEST GAMES...**

"Wheeeeee!" Lavi giggled in a rather unmanly fashion as he flew through the Order's many labyrinthine hallways on his invention. He personally thought that it was a hilariously fun diversion, but as for the people he was inconveniencing... well, who cared? He was stomach-down on a wooden board with four wheels attached, and he was constantly kicking off of the ground in an attempt to keep going. "Krorykins! Watch out," he called. The vampire looked back and stopped, nearly jumping in the air as Lavi shot down the hallway, nearly missing Miranda and scooting between Krory's legs as he continued his new game. As he continued to haphazardly speed down the hall, he realised almost immediately that he was going to crash.

Of course, it figured that he would notice this when it was too late to stop or even avoid slamming head-first into the person in front of him.

It also figured that it would be Kanda.

God was a sadist, Lavi decided in that instant, just before crashing into Kanda's left leg.

"Stupid rabbit -" he began, but was rudely interrupted by a staircase.

"Sorry, Yu-chan," Lavi replied loudly as they both fell down the staircase, quickly followed by the board, which landed on Kanda, as if to add insult to injury. "Really, I am!" he exclaimed when Kanda drew Mugen from its sheath at his side. Grabbing the board and running as fast as he could, he avoided most of Kanda's wild swings.

Ah, a predictable, if not insane, day in the Black Order.

* * *

It had all started with a box. It was just a simple box that the science department no longer needed, and Lavi had, in turn, spirited it away.

Yes indeed, Lavi had found a box and was going to have fun. He decided to shake things up a bit by sliding down the entire twelve-story staircase in the headquarters; it was the largest staircase here, after all. What he hadn't counted on was how crowded they would be. Looking back on it though, it didn't really matter much at all. The stairs had been quickly vacated.

Lavi had hopped into the box, a half-grin on his face as he scooted forward to the edge of the stairs and bellowed the obvious:

"Look out below!"

This proclamation was immediately followed by hurried footsteps, curses, loud shouts of acknowledgement and even encouragement, and of course, Kanda's 'che'. Tiedoll stopped to make a quick sketch of Lavi's haphazard expression of unadulterated joy and cautious worry.

Bump-bump-bump-bump-bump... he flew down the stone stairs in his box, hitting Komui on the way down.

"Oh, hi there, Supervisor," Lavi had offered with a huge grin before turning his attention back to the stairs. General Tiedoll leapt out of the way, stunningly agile for a man of his age, but Cross hadn't paid any attention whatsoever to anything but his current fixation - Lenalee. Cross was swept up along with Komui, and somehow Komui ended up in his arms as they continued the long descent into the annals of the Black Order. "Err... hello, General," he said sheepishly, opting to jump out before Cross could pull his gun on him. Unfortunately, he got stuck - between the small space allotted in the box and the two other people that he had run into, he had nowhere to go.

Twenty seconds later, he hit the stone wall at the end of the stairs rather unceremoniously, almost falling onto Miranda. The poor woman seemed more than a little startled, quickly scurrying off and muttering something about never leaving her room again.

Two pairs of eyes were now watching him; Cross seemed, well, rather cross at having been whooshed away from a potential lover in such an unceremonious fashion, while Komui simply seemed mildly shaken and more than a little relieved at keeping Cross's hands off of his sister. Yes, an apology was in order, the redhead decided.

"I'm sorry -" Cross unholstered his anti-akuma weapon, raising it to aim at Lavi, who ducked to avoid the shot. "Really, I am!" he exclaimed, grabbing his own weapon, the hammer, and extending it to make a quick getaway.

Two hours later, he had found _shreds_ of the box at the base of the stairs. _Thank you, General Cross_, he thought with a slight scowl.

And so the box-on-the-stairs game was abruptly ended.

* * *

The next day found him 'galloping' though the Black Order on a 'horse'. Said 'horse' was actually nothing more than a pair of coconut halves that he was clapping together in an approximation of the sound of hooves on stone, but he was 'galloping' nonetheless. He trotted through the cafeteria, pausing to steal a large bag of sweets and the like to share with Yu-chan, but aside from that, he left general havoc in his wake.

The science department had turned their heads at the sound of a horse coming through the hallways, and this momentary lapse had allowed Lavi to scatter papers everywhere as he ran through, jumping on cold lab tables and generally causing chaos. He dimly recalled knocking someone into Number 69, but of course he would choose not to remember that it had been a certain Reever Wenham, and that he had made the man spill his precious lemon soda all over Johnny.

The next target for 'invasion' was the library. The old panda could use a little excitement, he had reasoned. That particular adventure had earned him a few bumps on the head from intentionally falling stacks of books.

Miranda was next, and she had screamed, cowering in a corner, absolutely sure that she was about to be run over by a horse until she opened her eyes and promptly fainted.

The next place had been Kanda's room - of course, he had almost been killed in that endeavour. He had burst into the room without any advance warning only to find a brooding Japanese exorcist. Kanda looked surprised, but from there he had quickly turned it into cold, calculated annoyance. Lavi dropped the bag of candy that he had intended to deliver and ran, almost forgetting to bring the coconut halves along.

And then Kanda had **followed** him and sliced the coconuts into tiny pieces. Lavi also noticed that he was eating one of the candies that had been left earlier.

So far, the destruction of his favourite new games had become a recurring pattern. Pity.

* * *

That was all in all what had brought about the advent of his newest and greatest lifetime invention thus far, at least... **Laviboarding**. That's what he had chosen to call it, given that it was his invention and therefore he was entitled to name it.

His only goal was to crete something infinitely more deadly than any Komlin ever invented.

So far, he was succeeding in building up notoriety. He had scared the wits out of Miranda for the third time this week, managed to hit two Generals Klaud Nine had simply been amused and her monkey-Innocence-thing had wanted to try it as well, while Cross, after the box-down-stairs incident, had not been amused at all., snatch _more_ food from Jerry, run into Number 69 for a second time, and


	3. Illusion

"A Judge of Character" by Ryuuzaki Kusakurin

**DISLCAIMER:** D. Gray-Man never has, and never will, belong to me.

**Warnings:** Violence, language, etc.  
**Characters:** Various  
**Pairings: **None

Some of these are shorter than others, but the idea was the same: to create a collection of character-respective oneshots so that I could better understand the characters of D. Gray-Man.

This one's Tyki-centric. I love his 'black Tyki' side because he's so... suave, I guess. It makes me laugh when he gets surprised, though.

* * *

**ILLUSION**

He turned the page, glancing at the contents half-heartedly before spotting the title of the chapter - this book had somehow made him dubiously philosophical in the past few days, and he wasn't too eager to continue reading.

Illusion.

And then he snorted. _How fitting._

That was what the so-called 'real world' was to him, filled with ordinary, weak, stupid humans and equally stupid exorcists. They were much like ants, just slightly more persistent and a touch more irksome. However, they were still nothing but objects to be snuffed out one by one. Ants.

There was still one of them that fascnated him to no end - Card Shark Boy A, known to the world he deemed illusionary as Allen Walker. The boy had a rather uncanny ability to take whatever damage was dealt to him, and then - sickeningly predictable as he was - spring back from it. He was a true thorn in the Millennium Earl's side, that much was certainly true.

They were still naught but illusion, though; they were no more real to him than the 'bullets' Jasdero and Debitto used actually were. Since those weren't truly 'real' by his standards, neither was the land outside of their home here, in a different dimension entirely.

It was odd, he decided, that the world would be so strangely disconnected here; his own dimension in the Earl's lair was entirely more real than the place he frequented in his 'white' form - Earth. He turned the page as he mused this possibility, lost in his own thoughts.

"Tykiiii?" Road waved a lollipop in front of his face, trying to get her beloved brother's attention as he read - or at least** appeared** to be reading.

"Yes, Road?" He sighed, looked up from his book, and watched the oldest - yet somehow also the youngest - Noah dance around, happy to finally get his 'completely undivided' attention. She was Noah's sheep that controlled dreams, and she was also the scariest of them all, Tyki reflected, watching her wave Lero around carelessly. She had no remorse and no attachment to that 'false' world in which they fought - that alone was enough to scare most of the Noah, who still felt that the Earth was their true home.

"I'm going to bed, can you tuck me in?"

"Strangely sentimental, for you," Tyki commented, watching her twirl around, much to the disappointment of Lero, who had long ago claimed that Road's incessant spinning antics made him sick. Tyki, on the other hand, just thought that the talking umbrella made **him **sick.

"It's something that my mother used to do when I lived in the other world," she replied, an oddly soft expression coming to her features as she gazed out of the window overlooking her arena - the one where she forced her 'dolls' to run around screaming for their lives. "I sort of miss her, you know?"

Tyki just stared. This girl still had an attachment to the real world?

"Alright, Road," he finally sighed. "I'll tuck you in."

* * *

"Hey, Tyki?" The small voice came from Road's bed as he quietly turned the lights off with a wave of his hand, beginning to make his way out the doorway. He looked back in her general direction, waiting. "Do you love me?"

The question caught him aback. He turned around and walked back into the room, finally sitting on the edge of her bed, and her small hand tugged on the back of his jacket until he answered.

"Of course I do," he replied quietly. "We're family."

"Yeah," Road replied, the smile obvious in her voice. "Nighty-night, Tyki."

"Goodnight, Road."

He had no way of knowing that the small girl had stayed awake pondering his answer for quite a while after he left.

* * *

"How _kind_ of you, to put Road to bed," the smooth voice told him, coming from his back. "You're such a good brother."

"Lulu," he replied, continuing to walk down the seemingly endless hallway of black-and-white tiles and crazed walls. "I thought you were still gone," the polite response continued as he turned to face her.

"Obviously, I'm back," the woman replied, tossing her hair back and eyeing him carefully. She had never liked Tyki, but she put up with him.

"Welcome back, then," he answered, turning to walk back down the hallway.

"Love is just an illusion, too," she called after him, her sultry voice floating down the hallway of its own accord.

And so, he wondered. If the 'false' world was just an illusion, did that mean that his feelings about his family were, too?

He'd talk to Road when she woke up.

But for now, he picked up the book he had been reading earlier and flipped a page.

The title this time was 'Love'.

"Damn," he sighed, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling. "I'm never reading Road's books again."


	4. Solitary

"A Judge of Character" by Ryuuzaki Kusakurin

**DISLCAIMER:** D. Gray-Man never has, and never will, belong to me.

**Warnings:** Violence, language, etc.  
**Characters:** Various  
**Pairings: **None

Some of these are shorter than others, but the idea was the same: to create a collection of character-respective oneshots so that I could better understand the characters of D. Gray-Man.

Yu Kanda is, without a doubt, my favourite character in the series. However, he's also the hardest character to write! This being said, I've done worse, I guess... Sorry it's so short.

**SOLITARY**

Down, down, down into the blackness he plunged. The depths were cool and strangely inviting, as if a mother's arms were beckoning to her wayward children that had long since run off. Surrounded by the dark atmosphere, it wasn't hard to forget that there was a war raging still - the peaceful cavern was his private refuge, and his only place to find solace. As of late, he had felt his days drawing closer and closer to the end - the lotus flower he was forever forced to treasure only had three more petals now, but it was not entirely his fault, despite what he would think.

He could have blamed the akuma, or the Millennium Earl, or even the Black Order for enlisting him in a war that no one wanted to fight, but instead he blamed himself, based on shortcomings that were mostly in his head, or things that had happened that weren't his fault at all. He would never believe that, though.

He blamed himself for not being stronger, and even as his blade whistled through the air and his blindfolded eyes sought out a target only his mind could see, he cursed his own existence. He was pitiful to his own eyes, it seemed - something that he would never forgive.

He was always a second too late, a hair's breadth too weak, or a centimetre too far away. Always he was usually praised with empty words for an imaginary prowess - he wished that all his comrades would reward him with just a few moments of silence; that was all he would ever ask for, mostly in regards to Komui, Lavi - whom he held a grudging respect for, and the _moyashi_, Allen; the boy of the prophecy, the destroyer of time itself. All three had a way of bothering his very soul, especially the latter two; if they said that they would do something, they did it without fail, regardless of the odds stacked against them. The strength he felt he lacked lay in those two's abilities to trust and be trusted by others...

Oh, he hated it. The way others looked at them was always with some degree of respect, however grudging, was almost something worth mentioning in and of itself. He didn't care, he tried to tell himself, but the fact that he had noticed at all was testimony to the opposite.

Perhaps what he **did** lack could be made up for with friendship, but in the small time he had left to live, he would live it the same way he always had - alone.

Drawing Mugen once again, Kanda leapt off of his foothold, ready to face the next opponent, whether in his mind or in his soul.


	5. Whisper

"A Judge of Character" by Ryuuzaki Kusakurin

**DISLCAIMER:** D. Gray-Man never has, and never will, belong to me.

**Warnings:** Violence, language, etc.  
**Characters:** Various  
**Pairings: **None

Some of these are shorter than others, but the idea was the same: to create a collection of character-respective oneshots so that I could better understand the characters of D. Gray-Man.

Road Kamelot's hilarious! She loves Allen, yet she's a sadistic child with few morals and little respect. And she's a Noah - the oldest Noah. So this was written in order for me to figure out her sadistic side, more than anything.

* * *

**WHISPER**

"Pretty," Road crooned, brushing the doll's hair. "So pretty..."

The young girl that was her newest addition did not respond,of course. Such things were beyond someone whose base intelligence had been stripped of them along with their free will. It was sad, really, but Road didn't care. They were just toys for her amusement, and when they 'wore out' or she grew tired of them, they would be thrown to the akuma, also for her amusement. She thought it was hilarious to watch them run, screaming their lungs out, at the sight of such a basic level 1 akuma. Then again, they were only stupid humans - not even as good as those pathetic exorcists; that Allen Walker boy, at least, was near her level of power.

Her hairbrush snagged on a knot in the girl's silky hair, and she tugged, frustrated.

"Stupid doll," she muttered, tugging out a small chunk of the girl's hair. When her doll cried out softly, she scowled and then sighed. "This one's no good, either..." Yelling at her 'brother' in the other room, she called for his help. "Tykiiiiii... this doll's no good, can you pleeeease help me get it out of here?"

"Another doll?" He sighed, whether in frustration or dark amusement, she had no idea. Turning her eyes to him with her most innocent look, she simply watched him for a moment until he gave up, shrugging. "Alright, fine. Where do you want this one?"

"I dunno," she replied, seeming to consider it for a moment. "How about the arena that Earl-sama built for me?" Tyki didn't respond, but simply hefted the body and began walking off with it. Road followed, talking the entire way. "This one was no good," she pouted as they traversed the labrynthine halls with the ease of familiarity. "It cried out when I brushed its hair."

"You probably yanked its hair out," Tyki murmured, chuckling darkly. It was no secret that he found Road's antics amusing, but she found herself annoyed with his rush to the doll's side in the argument.

"So what if I did?" she demanded, sticking her tongue out at him and stealing his top hat, running off with it.

"Hey, I'll drop this if you don't bring my hat back," he called after her. Waiting a moment, he held his hand out, sighing when Road bounded back, plopping his hat back into his outstretched hand.

"You're no fun, either," she whined, skipping off the the arena and waiting for the star of her latest entertainment to arrive.

* * *

"Run, stupid, run!" Jasdero and Debitto cheered when the level 1 akuma shot off the girl's left arm.

"If you run fast enough, I might let you go," Road offered as her doll ran by, crying. "But then again, maybe not," she giggled as the girl more or less crashed into the akuma.

It was all over at that moment - the akuma's blood bullets pierced her stomach, other arm, and both her legs with ease. The girl let out a shrill shriek of horror and pain, turning her face to Road to look at her through her misery and humiliation as the star-shaped marks began to spread across her skin.

"It's your own fault," she told her with a sing-songing, unsympathetic voice. "You didn't run fast enough." The girl opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, she crumbled to blackened dust.

"Hihi! It broke!"

"Yeah! It broke! You need to get another one," Jasdero insisted, wandering off. "Tell us when you do, okay?"

"Mmhmm," she replied noncommitally, going off to steal Lero and perhaps find another way to amuse herself.


	6. Lazy Days

"A Judge of Character" by Ryuuzaki Kusakurin

**DISLCAIMER:** D. Gray-Man never has, and never will, belong to me.

**Warnings:** Violence, language, etc.  
**Characters:** Various  
**Pairings: **None

Some of these are shorter than others, but the idea was the same: to create a collection of character-respective oneshots so that I could better understand the characters of D. Gray-Man.

Yet another Lavi-centric oneshot. I still can't figure the Bookman out. I mean, I guess he's a walking facade, but there's got to be something _behind_ it, right? That's what I'm having trouble with.

**LAZY DAYS**

Kanda was fun to annoy, Lavi would give him that much, but there were times when the Bookman apprentice needed to just relax... well, the appropriate word was probably crash. He had been here for almost five years, seen exorcists die and be born before his eyes, and seen the rise of exorcists scarcely older than himself. It was a little frightening, really, that the fate of the world possibly rested on the back of the fifteen-year-old Allen Walker. It seemed silly to think that the white-haired boy could be the prophesied 'Destroyer of Time', but Bookman seemed to think that it was true, especially after seeing how Allen's Innocence had repaired his heart after the fatal injury from Tyki's weapons.

Laying his head back to rest on the cool stone of the Black Order's tower, Lavi sighed heavily, the book he had been reading now laying face-down on his stomach. Groaning sleepily, he peeled back his eyepatch and let his normally-covered eye take in the light.

It was a Bookman secret, and it was why so few people were actually suited to the job. Each suitable candidate had a super-sensitive eye, capable of recognising something with virutally no input from the brain at all. Because many people with this talent would be tempted to rely heavily on it, there were rules against the use of the eye at all while in training - his own sensitive eye hadn't seen sunlight in almost three years. Blinking back sudden tears from the impact of the light on his normally-covered eye, Lavi yawned and, after a few moments, pulled the black covering back down.

Watching the birds overhead, he was reminded of his youth - he had always admired the way birds could fly free, though he did have some dispensation in terms of freedoms. The redhead flirted shamelessly with nearly everyone around him, male or female - mostly because it amused him, no other reason - and he had the freedom to do whatever he pleased in his time off duty. But... there would always be something missing, and as one of the other apprentices had once remarked, he couldn't afford to slip up or fall down even once - in the heirarchy of the Bookman clan, the stairs went quite a ways up, and each mission only amounted to a single step out of hundreds, maybe even thousands.

"Like I could afford to fall, anyway," Lavi snorted, turning his head to the side to watch the clouds blow by - really, the Order was quite high up; he had never fully appreciated this fact and still didn't. Who would care, with an infinitely extending hammer that one could ride by means of transportation? Then again, his only real care was supposed to be recording history... though in a corner of the dark recesses of his mind, he knew he had already stumbled and fallen clear off of the staircase of the Bookman clan.

_When had it changed?_

_When had he started caring?_

It was his 49th persona, the one that called himself 'Lavi' and walked around flirting with everyone, joking, and generally cheering up the situations that surrounded him, whether intentionally or not. He enjoyed having the limited amount of freedom presented here - it was so much better than the dare he admit it stuffy chambers that his old 'home' had consisted of. As he thought continually about this, a mop of white hair appeared in his vision.

"Well damn," he muttered. "And here comes the _moyashi_."

"What part of me looks like a bean sprout, really?" Allen was usually annoyed by the nickname he had stolen from Kanda, but he knew that Lavi meant no harm by it.

"None of you," Lavi announced happily after giving Allen a once-over. "You're still _moyashi_, though." Allen pouted, sticking his lower lip out just enough to be adorable, and Lavi couldn't resist. "See? See? You're cute! Jerry-san was right!" Hopping up to do a little 'victory dance' for his apparent triumph over the powers of un-cute-ness, he continued until Allen flushed bright red, clearly embarrassed by Lavi's silly antics. "That was easy enough," he sighed, flopping back down and placing his book back on his face.

Really, these lazy days were what he existed for...

...but Kanda was still here to annoy. And Jerry had ice cream in the kitchen.

But he really, _**really**_ wanted to sleep.

Eventually, in the middle of this internal monologue, sleep claimed him, and he remained there until the sun set on the Black Order.

Lazy days, indeed.


End file.
